[CatherineTorpey]

Rev. Jacqui is preaching on “Midwifing Love.” Her text is Matthew 1:18-25. This is the story of how it was made known to Joseph that his fiancée was having somebody else’s baby, and that sombody else just happened to be the God of the universe.

A little ecclesiastical background before we get into the scripture: Right now, you might think we’re in the Christmas season, but in fact, we are in the season of Advent. If you know Spanish, “Advent” is related to the word “venir,” to come. It is the time of the year when we await the coming of the Messiah. The first day of Christmas comes on December 25 and lasts for 12 days, until the Three Kings arrive on January 6. Most of the time, the readings are chosen based on the “lectionary,” which is a pre-determined plan of Bible readings which takes place over 3 years. We are in Year A, and so this year, we are reading Matthew for Advent.

Of the four gospel accounts in the New Testament, it’s Matthew and Luke which have birth narratives. Luke’s is all about Mary’s experience, but Matthew’s is all about Joseph’s experience. So in this reading, we’ll hear it from Matthew’s side.

Our scripture is about the announcing of Mary’s pregnancy to Joseph. We don’t call this the Annunciation, which is the term traditionally used for the announcement to Mary (found in the book of Luke). I’ll start our reading at verse 1, so we’ll read the genealogy. That might seem boring, but it’s actually got a few fun details.

Here’s a video by the Bible Project about the first half of the Gospel of Matthew https://bibleproject.com/blog/jesus-genealogies/

And here’s a video from Overview Bible specifically about the genealogy in Matthew. He does a nice job of showing the many messages that Matthew was conveying in the genealogy. https://youtu.be/tA4uarAovIk

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